The Wii U GamePad is a great idea in theory: a secondary touch screen that offers an extra view and options to play. But in practice, it rarely worked, because gamers need to constantly adjust from the small screen to the big.

And Nintendo has finally admitted that this concept doesn’t work in practice.

This isn’t coming from some Nintendo employee at the bottom of the totem pole, this is coming from Aiji Aonuma — the maker of Zelda, one of the biggest developers at Nintendo.

“We realized that having something on the GamePad and looking back and forth between the TV screen and the GamePad actually disrupts the gameplay, and the concentration that the game player may be experiencing.” said Aonuma in an interview with Wired.

“You have your car’s GPS system on your dash. If you had it down in your lap, you’re going to get into an accident!”

It took them 6 years to realize this? The Wii U started development in 2010. Aonuma should put this in a memo to Miyamoto back when the Wii U was still on the drawing board.